But after a little while, the emperor, seeing that the discord between Cyril and John had continued, judged their dissension intolerable. And then, summoning to himself bishop Maximian and very many other bishops found at Constantinople, he pondered how the dissension of the Churches might be removed. But they said that this could not be done otherwise, unless first someone went and the bond of one faith were presented, and John of Antioch the bishop anathematized Nestorius and condemned his dogmas. And the emperor, rejoicing greatly over this, Aristolaus the tribune was sent to accomplish this very thing, bearing the ruler's sacred letter to John and Cyril, in which he threatened both with exile to Nicomedia, unless they should have peace with one another.
And the bishops at Constantinople also wrote to Cyril, that the measure of friendship and the peace of the holy Churches could not be brought about otherwise, unless everything that had been written by him in the cause, in his letters and tomes and books, were annulled. But to Cyril this seemed unbearable to do. However John of Antioch sent word to the emperor: 'On account of those very chapters of his, I will send my own statement of faith to Cyril, which if he, receiving it, shall subscribe, I will be in communion with him; otherwise I cannot be at peace with him.' And John, again gathering a council at Antioch, dictated a statement of faith running thus: 'We confess our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and body:
before the ages indeed begotten of the Father according to divinity, but in the end of days the same, for us and for our salvation, of the Virgin Mary according to humanity; and consubstantial with the Father according to divinity, and consubstantial with us according to humanity. For a union of two natures has been made, on account of which we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be the Mother of God, because God the Word was made flesh and became man, and from the very conception united to himself the temple which he assumed from her.
But the evangelical and apostolic utterances concerning the Lord we know that the God-inspired men either joined together, as belonging to one person, or divided, as belonging to two natures; and the more divine and loftier ones they handed down according to the divinity of Christ, but the lowlier ones according to his humanity.' Inserting therefore this rule of faith in this manner into his letter — the beginning of which is: 'Lately, by the decree of the most pious rulers,' etc. — John handed it over to Paul, bishop of Emesa, and directed it to Cyril at Alexandria. Coming into which city, Paul was both most graciously received by Cyril, and without difficulty or contention — as was thought by many — accepted the aforesaid faith of the Oriental bishops.
Then Paul, on Sunday, delivered a sermon to the people in the presence of Cyril, and expounded the passage from the Gospel of John: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (John I, 14). 'Behold,' he said, 'John proclaiming two natures and one Son: for one thing is the dwelling, and another, he who dwells, God. Attend, I pray, to the things that have been said. He did not say one and another, as in two persons, or in two Christs, or in two sons, but one thing and another thing, as in two natures. When therefore he said and dwelt among us, and proclaimed two natures, then he added: and we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.'
And in what followed he discoursed on the faith which he had brought to Cyril, openly proclaiming two natures in the Lord Christ, in one person. And when the people cried out, 'You have come well, O orthodox one,' Cyril at once treated of similar things, and among the rest said: 'What can be said more clearly than these things? What need have they of this explanation? He has aptly taught us that one thing indeed is he who indwells, and another he who is indwelt; and one thing is the human nature, another the divine.' And, concluding his sermon with a confirmation of the things said by Paul: 'Behold,' he said, 'John proclaiming two natures and one Christ: two natures of the Only-begotten, and one person. And when he said and dwelt among us, and proclaimed two natures, then he added this:
and we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' These things Cyril treated, with Paul present, and taught the Alexandrian church to believe thus concerning Christ, just as it had learned a while before from Paul's exposition. After this, Cyril, inserting into his own letter the faith of the letter which he had received from Paul — the beginning of which is: 'Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth exult,' etc. — satisfying the rumors of certain men which had circulated about him (namely that he did not assert that Christ took his body from heaven, nor held any fermentation or commingling of his natures), both wrote and subscribed the aforesaid faith, and directed it to the Oriental bishops.
Going up therefore to Antioch, Paul presented to John the archbishop, and to his whole council, the letter of Cyril. They, when they learned that he had accepted the faith directed by them, and had subscribed to confirm it, made peace with him and with his council, condemning Nestorius and accepting Maximian, who had been made bishop in his place — though some bishops among them still hesitated to be in communion with Cyril, thinking that he had erred and afterward acknowledged the truth, and blaming John, because he had not demanded from him the condemnation of his chapters.
On the other hand, certain persons of the palace, through Eulogius, presbyter and apocrisiarius of the Alexandrian Church, blamed Cyril for having accepted from the Oriental bishops the confession of two natures, which Nestorius had said and taught. But to Valerian of Iconium and Acacius of Melitene, bishops, this same thing concerning Cyril seemed amiss. 'But after a little while.' — After nearly six months had elapsed: for we have shown in the preface to the second part of the works of M. Mercator that the emperor's mandate, which lacks the notation of a day in the printed books, was issued at Constantinople at the beginning of April. 'And then summoning to himself Maximian.' — Of this whole consultation of the bishops in the palace we have spoken abundantly in the second dissertation appended to the same part of the works of M. Mercator.
'Unless first someone went.' — These are obscure words, unless perhaps they signify that someone was to be sent by the emperor, who would either convey to each of the dissenting bishops the bond of one faith, or command, in the emperor's name, that a bond of one faith be made by the common consent of both bishops. 'But they wrote from Constantinople.' — Cyril protests against this in his letters to Acacius of Melitene; for he relates that this was written by Acacius of Beroea, where the council of the Orientals was held. See the dissertation just cited. 'But John of Antioch.' — One should carefully note the fragment of a letter — certainly much more prolix — written by John to the emperor, in which Cyril's chapters were charged with heresy:
Theodoret mentions this in his second letter to Himerius of Nicomedia, found in M. Mercator. 'We confess.' — Of this confession, which even the Catholics themselves held suspect, and which Theodoret certainly asserted to be Nestorian, you will find an accurate discussion in the second dissertation just cited. 'Without difficulty and contention.' — He is at variance with the truth in this part: for from the time the bishop of Emesa came to Alexandria, four months and more were spent in negotiating the peace, the man of Emesa employing every art by which Cyril might seem to have been drawn to repentance:
nor, in order to evade this account, must one fabricate — as has seemed good to some — a twofold coming of the man of Emesa to Alexandria, as though, on account of the business being impeded, he had needed to return once to Antioch and thence bring back an emended confession of faith: for those who have so thought have been deceived through their inattention to a certain ambiguous expression in John's letter to Cyril. For since John said that concord had now returned with peace, those men interpreted it of the man of Emesa, of whom the discussion had been, as returning with peace. Apology 3 for the Bishop of Ypres. 'On Sunday.' — Everything is confused and obscure.
He mentions only one homily delivered by Paul, yet that man spoke to the people in the Alexandrian church twice, with Cyril presiding: once on the 29th day of the month Choeac, as the Egyptians say, and again on the 6th day of the month Tobi. In the earlier oration he did not explain John's saying, 'The Word was made flesh,' on the exposition of which he placed a great part of the other. What he reports Paul to have said, and what Cyril to have taken up, pertain to the second; whence you may emend the common editions of the councils, in which the things which Cyril subjoined to the first are appended to the second: moreover, both discourses were delivered on a Sunday; for the year 432 had the Sunday letter CB, but the following year 433 the letter A;
wherefore in that year the twenty-fifth day of December, which is the 29th of the month Choeac, was a Sunday, and so in this year it was the first. 'Some still hesitating among these.' — These things pertain to Theodoret, as we have shown from Cyril's letter to Acacius of Melitene, in the second part of the works of M. Mercator. 'The confession of two natures.' — To such a degree had the opinion, or rather the popular error, prevailed — the men of the Nestorian faction striving for it — that whoever confessed two natures was held to be a Nestorian, and whoever confessed one, a Cyrilline: this Cyril himself plainly teaches in his memorandum to Eulogius, of which afterward also Facundus speaks, book I.